Video 6:06
Pistorius case highlights South Africa's gun violence

Ginny SteinUpdated
Mon 25 Feb 2013, 8:14 PM AEDT

The trial of Oscar Pistorius has drawn attention to the level of gun violence in South Africa and the fear that engenders.

Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: When Paralympian Oscar Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend on Valentine's Day it inadvertently shone a spotlight on the problem of violence in South Africa, particularly against women. There, the murder rate for females is five times higher than the global average and more than 150 women are raped everyday.

It's a problem that's grown out of South Africa's troubled and turbulent history. But as correspondent Ginny Stein reports, many are now saying it's time for change.

GINNY STEIN, REPORTER: From the glittering world of international athletics, to this. The speed and degree of Oscar Pistorius' fall from grace has been shocking. He's one of the world's highest profile and best-known athletes, abled or disabled. So how did it all come to this?

Valentine's Day morning and police are called to the athlete's high security estate to find a weeping Pistorius, with the bloodied body of his dead girlfriend in his arms. He's admitted shooting 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp, but says he thought she was an intruder.

The state has a very different view of what took place that morning. With so much evidence presented so soon in his bail hearing, everyone has an opinion; judgments have been made.

OSCAR PISTORIUS, PARALYMPIAN (TV advertisement): My body is my weapon. This is how I fight, how I defend, deter, attack.

GINNY STEIN: His sponsors who backed him as a brand who epitomised the struggle against adversity, are deserting him in droves. South Africa and the world has turned.

LULU XINGWANA, MINISTER FOR WOMEN, CHILDREN & PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES: I would ask him to tell the truth. I would ask him to respect women. I would ask him to get rid of all his guns. Because I believe if he did not have guns in his home, Reeva Steenkamp would be alive today.

GINNY STEIN: South Africa, one of the most violent countries outside of a war zone, has been shocked by its own fear of violence.

ADELE KIRSTEN, DIRECTOR, GUN FREE SOUTH AFRICA: We have 17 people a day killed with guns in South Africa. This incident has highlighted almost how easy it is, that with the pull of a trigger, you can kill someone.

GINNY STEIN: As sponsors walk away, so too one organisation who was once proud to call him one of their own. His membership of a South African gun collectors club has been suspended.

He applied the month before this shooting for an additional licence - licences for an additional five or six weapons.

JOHN WELCH, PRESIDENT, SOUTH AFRICA GUN OWNERS ASSOC.: Seven.

GINNY STEIN: Seven weapons. It's a bit embarrassing now, isn't it for the president of the club who authorised it right now, isn't it?

JOHN WELCH: I certainly believe so. We already had talks with him.

GINNY STEIN: John Welch, gun collector, lawyer and former magistrate, says Pistorius has broken a cardinal rule of responsible gun ownership that the court may not be able to ignore.

JOHN WELCH: You never shoot at anything unless you have identified your target and what is behind your target. So, when a person - when I hear about a person having shot at allegedly somebody behind a door, that automatically puts on red lights for me.

GINNY STEIN: Amidst the heartbreak, another round of soul searching has begun in a nation that despite its violent nature still believes in the miracle of Nelson Mandela.

LULU XINGWANA: We still have to deal with the consequences of the war of Apartheid and the brutality of Apartheid that has actually affected the psyche of our society.

GINNY STEIN: The murder rate of South African women is five times the global average. More than 150 women are raped every day. That's one every four minutes. And while it's assumed that poverty is often the cause of much violence, Pistorius' case shows that in South Africa, violent crime is not limited to the poor or only committed by impoverished blacks against wealthy whites.

ADELE KIRSTEN: It seems that we see violence as a norm. It's tied up with our history and we can't seem to escape that.

LULU XINGWANA: Young Afrikaner men are brought up in the Calvinist religion believing that they own a woman, they own a child, they own everything and therefore they can take that life because they own it. We also have a cultural differences as well in our own communities where we have women who are forced into marriage and we are dealing with all those issues.

GINNY STEIN: Pistorius is now firmly in the spotlight, but his case may well serve to show that brutal violence against women is an equal opportunity affliction in South Africa. Rich or poor, black or white, South Africa is not a safe society for women.